Mill Basin Kosher Delicatessen

In the heart of Mill Basin, Brooklyn, sits a classic New York deli with an amazing secret. The deli’s owner, Mark Schachner, has been lining its walls with priceless works of art for the past 20 years.

Mark is a man dedicated to serving mouth-watering overstuffed sandwiches, with little time for the pretense of the art world, but around the time he opened the deli in 1973 he started developing an interest in art and began his own collection. In the 1990s, Mark began bringing some of his favorite pieces from home into the restaurant purely for his own enjoyment. Customers started taking notice and it became a staple of the deli. Along with pastrami and rye, the museum serves a regular rotation of Schachner’s massive art collection.

Patrons are especially fond of the pieces by the modernist master Marc Chagall. Schachner’s favorites are by Erté, the famed Art Deco pioneer. Schachner enjoys them so much that he owns several hundred pieces and had the illustrator design the sausage-themed paper placemats. Now any customer can walk away with an Art Deco take on deli meats.